Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1939
“However, the hair of his head began to grow again after he was shaved.” Judges 16:22.
LET me introduce the text to you. Samson was set apart from his birth to be the champion of Israel—to break the power of the Philistines who lorded over God’s people. Everything in his bringing up had reference to his peculiar calling as the hero of Israel, the hammer of Philistia. He was to be a Nazarite from his birth. Among other things which concerned the Nazarite, he never touched wine. No, nor grapes, nor husks of grapes, nor anything that came of the vine— which goes to show that the greatest physical strength is attainable without the use of wine or strong drink. Whatever else overcame Samson, he was never overcome with drunkenness, and yet he greatly sinned, which goes to show that total abstinence is not, of itself, enough to form a character. A Nazarite, in addition to abstinence from wine, also abstained from wearing the common appearance of men. He was not to have his hair at any time shaved or cut away—so that when Samson was grown up to manhood, he was covered with a shaggy mass of hair. He must have looked like the lion that he was. Those locks of his were the token of his consecration to God, the outward marks of his being set apart to be the servant of the God of Israel. Can you not see him with the terrible glory of his hair upon him?
Poor Samson was as weak morally as he was strong physically and he fell a prey, first to one evil woman and then to another. Perhaps the extraordinary strength of his physical frame placed him under stronger temptation than is common to man—at any rate, he was peculiarly constituted and seemed more like a wanton boy than a judge in Israel. Through this peculiar sin of his, the Philistines found opportunity to assail him. They tempted Delilah, whom he loved, to extract from him the secret of his great strength. He was so strong that he tore a lion as though it had been a kid. He was so strong that he carried way the gates of the city in which they had shut him up! He was so strong that he smote an army of Philistines, “hip and thigh, with a great slaughter.” The mercenary woman, upon whom he foolishly doted, extracted from him, by degrees, the secret of his strength. And while he lay asleep upon her lap, the Philistine lords caused a barber to cut away the locks of his head. He awoke from his sleep shaved. Then he went out and thought to fight the Philistines as before—but to his surprise he found that his strength was gone. The locks of his dedication had been shorn—he was no longer the acknowledged servant of the Lord—and he was weak as other men. Then the Philistine lords took him captive, bored out his eyes—for such is the expression in the margin of our old Bibles—gouged out his eyes, bound him to the mill and made him work like a slave or an ass. In that pitiable plight our text finds him—but it comes with a key of deliverance to set free the captive!
My text runs thus—it is in the 22nd verse of the 16th Chapter of Judges—“However, the hair of his head began to grow again after he was shaved.”
Poor Samson! I roughly sketched his story as with a crayon just now. I cannot stay to attempt a more accurate portrait. Poor Samson, the champion of Israel, now the scoff of his enemies! Poor Samson, the hero of so many fights, now at last conquered by his own foolishness! They have taken him; they have bound him; they have gouged out his eyes and there he stands—sightless—in the midst of his adversaries, who bind him to the mill and lash him as he grinds for them. To humiliate him, they put him to woman’s work, made hard so as to be the work of beasts. See what sin will do! See how the man who had fought God’s battles suffers great loss, great pain, great disfigurement, great dishonor and comes into a cruel and abhorred bondage through his sin! That shaved man made a slave is the picture of very many who once were
the avowed servants of God and were valiant for the Truth of God. They have given up their secret, they have told the world that which none should know but themselves. They have lost the locks of their dedication and they are led captive by the devil at his will. They cannot see as they used to see. Darkness shuts out all joy. They do not work for God as they used to work, for they are slaving for men, for poor, passing, earthborn objects! They have come into an awful bondage and they have, at the same time, brought great dishonor and weakness upon the Church to which they belong. How the mighty are fallen!
Children of God, whatever God may do for you, take heed that you always remember that you can never gain anything by sin! It is loss, utter loss in every sense, to yield ourselves servants to sin! Again I cry, How the mighty are fallen! How has the champion become a slave at the mill! In the midst of our Churches how often are those who were excellent and useful brought to nothing and made to be a derision! How often do our boldest warriors bring the Cross of Christ into contempt by their sin! The Lord keep us from thus falling! May we rather die than dishonor our Lord!